US & World

After White House meeting, GOP and Democrats still at impasse over debt ceiling

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R) speaks to the media following a meeting between US President Barack Obama and the House Republican Conference about the national debt limit.
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama invited House Republicans to his house Wednesday morning to talk about spending cuts and the debt ceiling. It appears the meeting did little to mend the gap between the GOP and Democrats.

Congress has until Aug. 2 to reach an agreement on raising the debt ceiling. The GOP wants spending cuts. Democrats, like Congresswoman Linda Sanchez of Lakewood, say Republicans should start with the Defense Department.

Sanchez compares the impasse to conversations with her toddler. "The two most frequent words out of my 2-year-old’s mouth are 'no' and 'mine.' And it sounds eerily reminiscent of some of the people that I work with up here. The good news is I know my 2-year-old will grow out of it. The bad news is I’m not sure that my colleagues will."

"We need to respect each other, not call each other names," says Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach. Rohrabacher says Democrats and Republicans "need to respect each other, not call each other names." He says it was nice that the president invited him and other GOP members over to talk, "but meetings like this aren’t going to make things happen better."

Rohrabacher says there’s a philosophical difference between Democrats and the GOP. Congress has two months to find a way to bridge that philosophy gap. Without a higher debt ceiling, the government could throw financial markets into turmoil.